


Jar of Hearts

by scheherezhad



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Kenneth fic, M/M, Schism D&D campaign, implied happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23811181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheherezhad/pseuds/scheherezhad
Summary: In which two idiots in love have a heart-to-heart, quite literally, actually.
Relationships: Memir Vrago/Bele
Kudos: 3





	Jar of Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Not exactly soulmates, but maybe? I've been sitting with this idea for months, stuck at the beginning and unwilling to give up on it. After I cried all over moriavis's soulmate fic for these two, I looked over my own WIPs and suddenly realized I'd been trying to start this one in the wrong place. Now it is out in the world.

Memir breathes heavily, shoulders tense, daggers held tight in his hands as he stares down at the corpse of the witch who had captured them. Corpse might be a generous term, really; it's more of a smoking wreckage on the floor of the witch's cavern lair, being eaten from the inside by their own backfired magic.

He looks around at the party, scanning quickly to make sure everyone is all right. Givo is a safe distance away on Isabeau, putting away his bow. Caroline is a little dirty from being knocked down, but she's up and moving toward Yevelda, who is bleeding in a couple of places but looks otherwise fine. Bele is gingerly pressing the back of one hand to his bleeding lip, split when he missed a strike and the witch hit him in the face. Seeing them all up and moving, Memir sheathes his weapons and allows himself to stand down.

"What do we do now?" Givo asks, sliding off Isabeau's back and coming closer to them. "About _that_."

Memir looks to the back wall, to the rough-hewn table where five cloches sit in a neat row, each containing a heart.

He didn't see them being placed when the witch took them, but he knows without question who each of them belongs to. Givo's is obvious, its halfling size noticeably smaller than the rest, and though it bears a few deep scars, it pulses with a steady beat. Likewise, Yevelda's larger, half-orc heart is a vibrant red and near unblemished, thumping strongly. In the center lies Caroline's, faintly bruised but healthy. His eyes linger on Bele's heart. It shows clear signs of many old wounds inexpertly mended, and the rhythm falters sometimes, but it carries on with determination.

The last is Memir's own. It's an ugly, pathetic thing, cracked and shriveled and neglected, struggling to beat. Memir can't bear the sight of it. It's one thing to know this is inside him; it's entirely another for it to be put on display for everyone to see.

"We find a way to put them back," Caroline says simply. She moves from Yevelda to Bele, touching his wrist lightly and healing his lip in a faint flash of divine light. "If they can come out, they can go back in."

"Yeah! Maybe it's like getting back into our bodies after we brought back Heldrig and Aluroe," Yevelda says.

Bele arches his eyebrow. "What, just pick them up and try to stick them in where they came out?"

"Sure! I mean, how else would we do it?"

Memir does not share Yevelda's confidence that it will be so easy to undo a witch's magic, even after their death, but he keeps his mouth shut. He'd rather not draw attention to himself right now. Thankfully, Caroline offers a voice of reason.

"Well, we might have to do it with magic. It might not be easy--I don't know what spell I would need, if it's one I even have access to."

"Oh. Right," Yevelda says, frowning. "But we can try the easy way first, right?"

"Yes, we'll try the easy way first."

The easy way, unsurprisingly, doesn't work.

With Caroline standing ready to heal if anything goes wrong, Yevelda is eager to go first with no thought to the danger, only optimism toward the desired outcome. She picks up her heart and presses it against her chest. Nothing happens. She closes her eyes for a minute, brow furrowed in concentration, and presses more. After a moment, she stops. "It's not working," she says, staring petulantly at the thing. "It knows where it belongs, but it can't get there."

Givo approaches the table and removes the cloche over his own heart. He takes it in hand and studies it for a long minute before he speaks. "I think it might need magic? I can't tell what-- It _does_ know where it belongs, and it knows how to go back, we just have to figure out what it needs..." He holds it out toward Caroline. "Can you feel that?"

She reaches out and rests her fingertips on Givo's heart. Their eyes snap to each other at the same time, expressions shifting into a mix of wonder and joy. "Oh, it seems so obvious, doesn't it?"

"Don't know why we didn't realize," Givo agrees.

"What do you mean?" Yevelda asks.

Caroline delicately takes the heart from Givo and shoots Yevelda a small smile. "It has to be done by another person. Maybe the witch left a loophole in their spell? I think they might've intended for it to only be undone by themself, but they didn't build it in that way. Or maybe they didn't expect anyone else to ever have the chance to undo it."

"Ohh, okay. So who wants to do mine?"

"I will," Givo offers. "And you can help Caroline?"

Caroline nods and turns to catch Memir's eye, then Bele's. "We'll let you two help each other."

Fear spikes sharp through Memir, and he notes distantly that he's breathing too fast. He follows Bele on instinct, watches him retrieve his own heart and examine it. An odd expression crosses his face, but he shakes it off and turns to Memir, drawing close.

"They're right," he says quietly, "it does know where it belongs."

Memir tries to steady his breath when Bele holds his heart out for Memir to take. Will he feel it? Will Bele? Fuck.

Bele lays his heart in Memir's palm and covers it with his own hand. It thrums hot between them. "I don't know if this will work, and you don't-- have to, but--" He pauses and takes a deep breath, hesitantly meeting Memir's eye. "If you want to, I want you to keep it."

Memir must look panicked, because Bele rushes to continue.

"It's fine, if you don't! I mean, it's not a very nice one, right? I just-- I mean-- I gave it to you a long time ago anyway, metaphorically, so I thought-- And I would take such good care of yours, I swear! But only if you want me to."

He watches numbly as Bele reaches out again and picks up his poor excuse for a heart. Memir feels it flutter futilely, desperately, a moth with a missing wing.

"It's trying so hard," Bele murmurs as he holds it in two hands, cradling it like a rare, precious gem. 

The feeling is not dissimilar to being judged when they traveled to the land of the dead, a sensation of hands cupping his very essence. This doesn't give him the same sense of intrusion, though, it's just... warm. Like the whole of who he is is wrapped up and sheltered from the world.

Bele's nervous expression melts into resigned disappointment as the silence drags out. "Sorry, it was a stupid idea. I'll just..." He trails off and reaches out to give Memir's heart back.

Memir reaches up to stop it, just his hand placed between his body and Bele's trembling fingers. "I didn't say 'no,'" he says. "You know feelings are-- hard. For me. ...I'm scared."

"Oh. Oh, good, because I'm terrified," Bele says with a hitched laugh. "Do you really want to try? I mean it, it's only if you want to, if it even works."

"We're probably doing something very stupid," Memir says by way of agreement. He looks at the tangle of their hands and at their hearts and at Bele's face, and he thinks, 'fuck it.' Doing stupid things has to work out once in a while, right?

He sets his heart in Bele's hand against Bele's chest, and Bele's heart against his own, takes a deep breath, and as one, they push.


End file.
